A Room With No Natural Light

by Douglas Lindsay

  She was free, Pitt had come to rescue her, and her sorrow was gone. The vineyard could breathe again.

  *

  Pitt booked tickets on a British Airways flight to Paris CDG the following morning from Heathrow, a room in a hotel at Heathrow Airport that evening, followed by three nights in a hotel in Paris. He did not think beyond that.

  In the space of twenty-four hours, he had come to feel great gratitude for Hardyman’s handling of his personal finances. For, while the vineyard had struggled to make money, Hardyman had made sure that Pitt personally would be all right. He had not creamed money from the vineyard, had done nothing extravagant. However, he had taken Pitt’s complete lack of interest in his own financial situation and quietly, over the course of eleven years, made Pitt very financially comfortable.

  Now, although Pitt was aware of a new found contempt for his wife, he was not about to run off with all the loot in a backpack. After sorting out his travel details, he visited the bank. Transferred half his savings into his current account, the other half into Daisy’s personal account. He suspected, correctly, that this would salve her anger when he told her he was leaving.

  He was so used to not examining his life, to living his life for one purpose, that, now the purpose had altered, he did not examine it either. He had methodically thought out the steps that required to be taken, he had considered the dangers and the problems that could get in the way, and now he was following them through; and, once again, he was not stopping to examine his actions. He was doing the right thing for Ju, insomuch as his knowledge of her allowed, and that was all that mattered.

  Their connection was not just chemical, not just some ephemeral rationalisation of their mutual attraction. They understood each other, and they instinctively knew things about each other.

  They did not need to know the other’s history; they did not need to talk.

  45

  Horsfield and the scientists and interrogators of DEFRA arrived, with two cars worth of local journalists in tow, trailed by the BBC van, which had fallen behind in traffic out of Bristol.

  Someone at DEFRA had anonymously tipped off the press association and the BBC. It was a small story, but it was late July. The politics had just ended for the summer and there had yet to be any great natural disasters for the season. The news was slow. Horsfield had rather liked the idea of the presence of the media, having long thought that her job would make excellent reality television. She was a firm believer in the notion of government doing what it could to make money commercially, then ploughing the money back into the public purse. She had, so far unsuccessfully, lobbied her chain of command to allow her to contact various television channels with her reality television idea. The Curious Case of the Dead Birds At The Vineyard seemed like a perfect opportunity for her to market herself to the wider television world. Already, she wondered if there might be enough in the story to make a book out of it; or, at any rate, a magazine article worthy of the New Yorker.

  Her assistant, Marks, who was driving, parked the car in the shade of an old oak tree, under her direction, to keep the car out of the sun. In the back seat of the government car was a vet, to further investigate the mystery of the dead birds, and a botanist, to further examine the vines to ensure that they had not been sprayed with any banned substances.

  When arriving at Pitt’s vineyard the first time, Horsfield had used one of her office’s Astras to make the trip. On this second occasion, knowing that the media were going to be in tow, and wanting to make her arrival more imposing, she had requested, and received, the office Jaguar.

  The menagerie of government and media people emerged from the cars and stood in the shade or sun of a warm summer’s day. Jenkins had heard the pack coming up the driveway and was already walking down from the office, accompanied by Blain, the new right hand man.

  Horsfield was playing the part of general as well as media facilitator – there would be no one else giving directions – and was establishing the best place to be standing in relation to the angle of the sun when the television cameras captured images of her first meeting with Pitt. She was annoyed that the television van had been unable to keep pace, and watched the slow walk of Jenkins towards them with some disappointment.

  Already the photographers were starting to work. The farmhouse, the vines, the trees, the government enforcer standing beside her Jaguar. Daisy’s face appeared at the window, and two of the photographers got a wonderful ghostly image before she retreated out of sight.

  Jenkins approached, nervous apprehension mixing with excitement. The media were converging on the vineyard and he was in charge. Slightly disappointed not to see the television cameras.

  As he extended his hand to Horsfield, he suddenly wondered if Pitt had left him with a sinking ship. It had not occurred to him in the previous two days, it all happening so fast, and having been so taken aback by Pitt’s requests. Perhaps Pitt knew that everything was about to fold; perhaps he knew exactly why the birds had been dying, and, when they were found out, the vineyard would be closed down and the entire business would be ruined. Perhaps Pitt had made Jenkins captain of the Titanic, an hour after it had hit the iceberg.

  Horsfield shook Jenkins’s hand, knowing that if the television cameras had been there to capture the moment when she stamped her complete authority on proceedings, she would have ignored it.

  ‘Mr Jenkins,’ said Horsfield. ‘You’ve been expecting us.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Jenkins, somewhat stiffly.

  She turned and waved a dismissive hand in the direction of the members of the press, most of whom were standing around beneath the trees, hoping to be the first to spot a bird, so that they could puncture the story. The usual peculiar combination of wanting there to be a story, and wanting to debunk it at the same time.

  ‘The media got word of it, somehow,’ she said. ‘It’s a dreadful bore, but we get used to it.’

  She glanced back down the driveway and was relieved to see the television van coming towards them. Jenkins, whose nerves had quickly begun to settle, once more found his stomach twisting.

  ‘Ah,’ said Horsfield, as if slightly put out by the arrival of television, ‘cameras. Oh dear. Well, we might as well wait until they get set up, or else they’ll just want us to do it all again. You know what they’re like. Fake everything.’

  Jenkins turned and gave Blain a look. Blain was smiling. He was going to be on television and was quite happy about it. He’d already been working on his persona, and had decided to go for the cheeky, slightly flirtatious, good-natured soul who really knew far more about the wine business than people would be expecting. It would be a subtle but engaging blend of light and depth.

  ‘Is Mr Pitt out amongst the vines?’ asked Horsfield, casting a glance in that direction, but without really taking her eyes off the van as it approached and came to a stop. ‘Or is he in the house?’

  She looked at the kitchen windows, thought she saw some movement. Presumed it would be the hired help; the one she’d had the phone call about.

  ‘Mr Pitt’s not here,’ said Jenkins.

  ‘What?’

  She turned quickly. This trip, the television cameras, had been planned to revolve so much around Pitt. He was to have been a perfect foil for her quick-witted acerbity. The dour businessman made foolish by the cunning government inspector.

  ‘He’s coming shortly?’ she said, looking at Jenkins as if the very notion of Pitt not being there carried inordinate levels of impertinence.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Jenkins. ‘I’m not sure where he’s gone, but he asked me to deal with you when you came, so I presume he won’t be here. Maybe he told Mrs Pitt,’ he added, indicating the farmhouse, and knowing full well that there was little chance of that.

  Finally, Horsfield turned her back on the television van, as the cameraman began to unload his equipment.

  ‘That really is most unacceptable,’ she said. ‘I wanted to see the captain, not the cabin boy.’

  The com
ment fizzed from her lips. Immediately she wished she’d saved it for the cameras, thinking it rather clever. Jenkins found that any excitement or discomfort at the presence of government inspectors disappeared.

  She glowered at Jenkins, then turned and walked swiftly away to speak to the roving television reporter, who had just emerged from the van, a pair of sunglasses lodged in his hair.

  ‘Cabin boy,’ said Blain, smiling, and tapping Jenkins on the arm.

  ‘What does that make you?’ said Jenkins without looking at him, keeping a firm eye on Horsfield.

  Blain sighed, already thinking that this might not be as much fun as he’d been hoping.

  ‘Toilet cleaner, I expect,’ he muttered quietly.

  Jenkins smiled grimly and clapped him on the shoulder.

  ‘It’s good that we all know where we belong,’ he said.

  *

  Some necessary questions had been asked off-camera, various set-ups and angles had been tried. Horsfield had suggested that really she ought to be the focal point of the story and Brian, the man from the BBC, had happily gone along with it, knowing full well that they could edit it how they pleased once they were back at the studio. An hour talking on camera to Horsfield coupled with thirty seconds on camera to Jenkins, could easily translate on transmission to thirty seconds talking to them both.

  The intention was a short interview with Horsfield, with the vines as a backdrop, and then they would go roving through the vineyard, as the scientist and the vet searched for clues in amongst the vines.

  A warm summer’s late morning, insects in the air.

  ‘Is this the strangest thing you’ve ever come across in all your years as a government enforcer?’ asked the man from the BBC.

  It was Horsfield herself who had inserted the term government enforcer into Brian’s vocabulary. Brian, while wary of Horsfield as someone who clearly wanted the report to be about her, rather than him, had at least enjoyed the term and was happy to run with it.

  ‘Well, Brian,’ she began, as if about to deliver a football report on a Saturday afternoon, ‘I don’t know if I’d go that far. One comes across the most bizarre things in one’s line of work. Certainly, however, this dead bird assignment is very strange and quite unique.’

  ‘How were you first alerted to the problem? Is it true that you were called in by the vineyard owner?’

  ‘I’m not sure that you can say that. Rarely in this line of work does one come across helpfulness to any great degree. One does find oneself... finds oneself battling against forces that... against forces...’

  She finally stopped, distracted by the persistent psst! from the soundman, whose name she had not taken the time to learn. She and Brian looked at him curiously.

  It was Tony the soundman, who had been working for the BBC for over twenty-five years, who first heard it. Perhaps the microphone and the earphones he was wearing helped. Perhaps he was just naturally more attuned to hearing noises that seemed out of place.

  This particular noise would not normally have been out of place on a warm day in an English summer beneath a small copse. However, these men had been brought here expecting near silence, and when they’d first arrived, that was what they’d had: nothing, but the sound of insects.

  They stood quietly, straining to hear what it was that Tony could hear. Jenkins was first to catch on; he had almost been expecting it. Hadn’t Pitt said that the birds would return? Blain noticed soon after, picking up on Jenkins’s smile. Around the small group of pressmen and government inspectors the recognition grew.

  The shrill whistle of a nuthatch. Only three of the small group of twelve actually knew the species of bird, but there was no mistaking the sound. There was a bird in the trees.

  The camera pointed up towards the leaves, all eyes were raised to the trees or the sky. Horsfield had stopped talking; the man from the BBC had lost interest in her anyway. One of the reporters saw it first and pointed silently. Everyone looked. A small blue-grey bird with chestnut sides and a black stripe on its head.

  ‘Isn’t that a bird?’ said the BBC man.

  Jenkins was smiling.

  ‘Well, no one said they didn’t get birds,’ said Horsfield shrilly. ‘It’ll be dead in a minute.’

  The vet thought the bird looked fine, and it sounded happy. It was not whistling in any kind of distress. The soundman slipped his earphones back on to see if he could hear any other sign of birdlife.

  ‘Is that right?’ said the BBC man to Jenkins. ‘Is it about to die? You know, because it would be great if we could get an actual shot on camera of a bird dying. That would be terrific.’

  ‘That’s the shot you’ll get,’ said Horsfield.

  ‘Excellent,’ said one of the assembled press.

  Jenkins laughed, but he was happy, not laughing at the conversation that was taking place.

  ‘What?’ snapped Horsfield.

  ‘Is it going to die?’ asked the BBC man. ‘Will it die? We will get that shot?’

  Jenkins shook his head. He was looking up at the bird, smiling, thinking about Pitt and his extraordinary prescience, which he really did not believe had anything to do with any prior knowledge on what had been keeping the birds away.

  ‘We haven’t seen a bird here in six weeks. The dead ones were all at the beginning, and we never saw them alive beforehand. They must have been here already when it started.’

  ‘So what does that mean?’ asked the BBC fellow.

  The soundman pointed up into the trees again, a little further to the left. They all stopped and listened, and now, quite distinct, was the peculiar chirrup of the great tit. One of the reporters groaned, muttered, ‘Bloody waste of time. Bloody birds all over the place.’

  Horsfield stared angrily at Jenkins.

  ‘That’s a different bird,’ said the BBC man. ‘Really, what does it mean?’

  ‘The birds are back,’ said Jenkins. ‘The birds are back.’

  46

  The reporters from the tabloids had gone. They’d waited a short while to see if one of the birds would fall dramatically from the trees, however each minute that they’d stayed only seemed to bring a new kind of birdsong into the copse at the side or the trees around the driveway. Finally, one of them had taken Jenkins aside, looking for a bit of inside gossip, and Jenkins had bluntly told him that it was all as it appeared. The birds had gone or had died, and now they were back. Whatever strange set of circumstances had kept them away was now at an end. The birds, said Jenkins with a wry smile, were back for good, and they weren’t all going to die.

  The tabloids had left shortly afterwards.

  The BBC was still there. They had nowhere else to go, so they had gone with Blain and the two government scientists, walking up and down the vines, taking a look at the overall setup of the vineyard; the BBC hoping that, if they waited around long enough, something would happen.

  When it did happen, they were on the other side of the vineyard and missed it.

  *

  Horsfield was outraged, spitting. She had almost gone with the others out into the vines, but could not stand to listen to the growing cacophony of birdsong. Picking up on her anger and frustration, Jenkins had invited her into the kitchen. He had found it funny at first, had enjoyed the moment; now, he wished that the birds had come sooner, that Horsfield could have been alerted by telephone, and had come to the vineyard knowing what she was going to find. He did not enjoy her presence in her moment of disappointment.

  She was sitting at the table with Jenkins, her phone attached to her ear, although she hadn’t yet spoken to anyone; trying to reach her boss, whom she suspected was avoiding her. Jenkins was trying not to look at her, although he was strangely fascinated. Daisy was making tea, keeping busy; wondering what was going on with Pitt, and why he wasn’t there when the government was.

  Mrs Cromwell was in the corner, waiting for her moment.

  Horsfield snapped the phone off and placed it noisily onto the table. ‘This is just a piece of work,’ s
he said.

  Jenkins had nothing to say. He glanced at her, but she wasn’t looking at him, wasn’t speaking to him.

  Daisy placed a teapot and cups on the table. She never made coffee, and when people asked for it, she just relied on their feeling of awkwardness preventing them from pointing out that they hadn’t been given what they’d asked for.

  Jenkins smiled to himself, knowing that Horsfield had never been going to get the coffee, lots of milk, lots of sugar that she’d requested.

  Horsfield looked at the tray, her mouth opened, but she didn’t say anything.

  ‘Do you want a cup, Mum?’ said Daisy.

  Jenkins wondered if they’d be offered a biscuit of some description, but was fairly confident that they wouldn’t. Horsfield felt detached from her reality. In her self-absorption, she was not dissimilar to Pitt, although she wished to impose herself on others, while Pitt retreated from them. However, while in that part of their characters they were completely opposed, they were alike in their dislike and disinterest in small talk.

  If Pitt was making himself a drink in a room he shared with other people, he would either make one for the others or he wouldn’t, having made a judgement on whether or not he thought they might want one. He would never ask or offer. Anything to avoid conversation, even when it was warranted.

  Horsfield’s contempt of unnecessary human conversation would lead her to be equally oblivious to what other people might want. In her case, however, the chances were very small that she would ever do something for anyone else, no matter how trivial.

  Daisy placed the cup of tea with no sugar in front of Horsfield, who wondered whether or not she had to drink it in order to be polite.

  ‘Mum?’ said Daisy, her voice with more of an edge. Mrs Cromwell was distracted or ignoring her, so Daisy tutted loudly and poured her a cup anyway.